Engineers at Duke University have developed a new way of producing fully recyclable printed electronics, which involves using water instead of chemicals in the fabrication process. The research, published in the journal Nano Letters, paves the way for a more sustainable and environmentally friendly future for the electronics industry. One of the biggest challenges for electronics manufacturers is getting layers of components to stick together, which is essential for creating complex devices.

Previous research by Duke University showed that fully recyclable printed electronics could be produced using three carbon-based inks. However, adapting the process to only use water proved difficult because of the carbon nanotubes. To make a water-based ink in which the carbon nanotubes do not clump together, a surfactant is added. The resulting ink creates carbon nanotubes that are not dense enough for a high current of electrons to travel across. However, Franklin and his group developed a cyclical process in which the device is rinsed with water, dried in relatively low heat and printed on again. The researchers demonstrated the viability of this approach by creating fully functional, fully recyclable, fully water-based transistors. (Read more here)

The approach could be used in the manufacturing of other electronic components, including displays and screens. The entire electronics industry has been flagged by the US Environmental Protection Agency for its hazardous chemicals and toxic gases, so any approach that is more environmentally friendly is important to pursue.

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🔌 Texas A&M Researchers Discover New Circuit Element

Meminductor Proven to Exist

Hold onto your capacitors, folks, because the world of electrical engineering just got a whole lot more exciting. Researchers at Texas A&M University have discovered a new circuit element, and they're calling it a meminductor. Yeah, we know, the name doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, but trust us, this is big news.

You see, a circuit element is like a superhero in the world of electrical engineering. It's an electrical component that helps direct and control the flow of electricity through a circuit. We've had the resistor, the capacitor, and the inductor for a while now, but in the past 15 years, we've discovered two new circuit elements called the memristor and the memcapacitor. These new elements have properties that depend on previous values of current or voltage in time, like a memory.

Dr. H. Rusty Harris and his student at Texas A&M University have now discovered a third mem- element: the meminductor. They used an electromagnet interacting with a pair of permanent magnets to examine the magnetic flux density and magnetizing field strength of the inductor circuit element, and with the help of this tool, they were able to prove the existence of the pinched hysteresis curve within the inductor, leading to its mem- state. (Read more here)

The researchers published their findings in Scientific Reports, which is the fifth most-cited journal in the world and is part of the Nature portfolio. We're talking major league science, people.

"New discovery is very exciting," says Dr. Harris, and we couldn't agree more. This is like discovering a new planet in the universe of electrical engineering. Who knows what other mem- elements are out there waiting to be discovered? It's an exciting time to be a scientist, that's for sure.

So, the next time you're talking shop with your electrical engineering buddies, be sure to drop the word "meminductor" into the conversation. They'll be impressed, and you'll know you're on the cutting edge of scientific discovery.